The Daily Worker Newspaper, August 29, 1925, Page 13

om graphed to his paper from Chicago, at the end of the convention, that “the Trotskyites have won the party.” Our majority wasn’t quite sure for five mon‘hs whether they were Trotskyites or not! In January, comrades, in the edito- rial board of the Liberator, Comrade Pepper made a proposal that he write an article for the Bolshevik group and against Trotskyism in the Liberator. Comrade Cannon opposed itt, saying he did not yet sufficiently know the’ facts and wasn’t ready to make a de- cision, 5 In March there was a full meeting of the ©. H. OC. and our group offered & resolution to endorse the old group in the Russian Party and Comrade Foster answered by a motion that we take no position but print the mate- rial in the party press, and then, com- rades, what happened? Along in April when Comrade Foster was already in Moscow, a telegram came-vo me from Comrade Scott saying that our party should send a telegram to the Russian Party convention endorsing the Bol- shevik group, and I was compelled on my own responsibility to send that telegram and put the party on record, while the O. B. C. had refused to take action on it before. (Applause.) Comrades, on the first of June Com- rade Foster came back from Moscow. He had seen the situation there, and then the ©. B. CO. did endorse the Bol- shevik group with a vote of 12 to 1; in other words, it took five months to get an understanding of the situation into the minds of the majority group and get them to act on this question. We say this was not a chance, this was not a happenstance. It was due to the fact of their relationship to the Lore group that made it impos- sible to get earlier action from them, to get action until after the decision had been finally made in Russia. Now, comrades, on the issue of Lore- ism. Loreism developed in our party in a violent form when Lore became part of the majority of the C. E. C. He thought he was )art of the leader- ship of the party now and he could speak. He could express-himself, and -he did express himself in ‘writing an “article on the fifth anniversary of the C. L, a very bad article. The minor- ity said, “We must correct it. The Cc. E. C. must issue a statement con- demning this editorial.” It moved to that effect, but the C. E. C. said “No, we will not issue such a statement. Let Comrade Lore write a new edi- torial in which he corrects these ideas. In other words, they had to protect the member of the majority—Lore— from a public condemnation by the C. BE. C. of the party. 2 OW we cite these two facts about Loreism and the Trotsky matter to show what the connection was, and I say that it is due to this connection this basis of the majority, that dur- ing the year that followed that it suc- cessfully moved step by step to a Lore- ist policy, that it went toward right wing sectarianism in our party. It was the influence of this support in the party reacting on the majority of the C. E. C. that brought about these mistakes, in addition, of course, to the mistaken conceptions of the members of the majority itself, and I am going to cite Some of those mistaken concep- tions. ; During the first half of 1924, our party was still working under the poli- cies that were formulated by the pres- ent minority. The policies of 1922 and 1923 were accepted unanimously by the last convention. Our policies. And we continued those polictes during the first six months and our party con- tinued to make progress, It was when. the majority had to formulate its own policies on main political events that - errors began to appear, and the results for the party you know, Let me show you what happened as to figures. Piven we must estimate the successes of the work of the party by the results it has attained and how are the results registered, Influence among masses and drawing the most advanced elements into our own party as members of the party, These are ‘the two indications of whether our pol- icles are correct and whether they are being carried out and the results for us. I cannot estimate the infiu- ence among the masses by statistics because we have none, but we know that our influence increased during 1922-1923. In 1923 we brought into our party as new members 6,532 members. For the six months of 1924, with the same policies effective we brought into the party 4,658 members. And then suddenly the \esuris collapsed in spite of the fact that we were in the presidential campaign under our own name, in spite of the fact that that was a good opportunity for propa- ganda for Communism, direct appeals for the Workers Party. During the next six months’ period, the figures were 50 per cent of the new member- ship taken in and as compared with the first six months of 1924) and 1925, we took in 4,600 in 1924 and 2,000 in 1925. Comrades, how do we explain that sharp change in the results for our party? Why this sudden change in the number of members we could win for our party? Was it objective con- ditions as between the first half of 1924 and the second half, the first half of 1924 and the second half of 1923, or was it a change in thé orientation of the line of policy which our party was pursuing? Comrades, we main- tain that it was a change in the line of policy made by the C. EB. C, that is responsible for this failure to secure results for our party. I am going to teli you now the con- ception that is fundamental to this error which was made during the period in question. Comrades, we do not always in theses speak our inner- most thoughts, and Comrade Bittel- man may have written part of the main thesis before this convention, and done it after a C. I. decision and after a bitter struggle in the party and formulation of the policies cor- rectly after this struggle. But I am going to submit to you Comrade Bit- telman speaking spontaneously, his own ideas, his own conceptions, before the convention of the Russian section of our party, in February of this year. And what did Comrade Bittelman say then? Here it.is: I have quoted it before and I will quote it again to show what cannot be the_ policy. of a Communist Party. “It is becoming clearly apparent that the only real opposition that will ever be developed in the United States against.the rule of big capital in distinction to opposi- tion to capitalism as a whole, will come only from the..movement that the Workers Party will be able to create.” SAY, comrades, that» is not Com- munism; that is not Marxism; that is not Leninism; that is something that is alien to every fundamental con- ception of our movement, and I say further, if you have that thought in your mind you will be opposed to the labor party policy of our party. If you have that thought in your mind you make errors. You abolish united front women’s organizations. If you have that thought in your mind, Comrade Bittelman, you bring in a report to make the International Workers’ Re- lief openly a part of our, party. Let us see how it worked out. This conception that the Workers Party itself must-create the movements which developed against capitalism, that our party as a party is the basic condition to the creation of oppost- tion not against capitalism as a sys- tem only but even a movement against big capital, Comrades, my conception, and I am sure the conception, of.every member of those who sit on. the left of this convention, is that capitalism because of all its contradictions, -be- cause of its exploitations and oppres- sions, brings resistance on the part of various groups of the capitalist so- cial order, That it brings revolts: of the petty bourgeoisie. It even brings struggles between two groups of capi- talism of very bitter character, It brings the revolt of the Detty beur- geoisle against capitalism and {ig the basic reason for the Yevolt' 6f the working class, Yes! This capitalist social order, Comrade Bittelman, which yeu say our Party only can build the movement against, this capi- talist social order, has created our party. Its conditions create the Party, the leader of the working class in the struggle, and yeu have put it topsy turvy, turned the whole thing around | and with that conception you will con- tinue to make yeur errors on policy, (KOMRADE BITTELMAN told’ some. a.struggle over the date of June 17th convention, Whether it should be held on May 30th of whether we should change the date, and he said that on this question that I supported the ma- jority. Well, comrades, I would say that the majority supported me on that question (applause) because I in- itiated it, I proposed the policy and fought for that particular policy. We also, comrades, had differences in relation to the labor party policy in relation to the C, P. P. A., and it Was our view during that six months period the C. E. C. majority showed a hesitating, vascillating attitude, that it did not know where it was going, that it had no clear lines of develop- ment We feared at one time after the St. Louis convention that it might want to call off the May 30th conven- tion and go into the C. P. P. A: con- vention There were differences of attitudes in which we believe that our viewpoint showed the right line of policy for our party. There were distinct differences of attitude in which we believe that our viewpoint. showed the right policy for our party and the Communists after the June 17th convention. The C. E. C. majority, in its statement regarding the labor party policy, tells us that it was after the elections that it form- ulated that policy. It is a fact, com- rades, that the policy was abandoned before the November elections; it was abandoned in the middle of October when the fight began over the ques- tion of what policy we should pursue in the A. F. of L. convention. We said we must ¢ontinue to fight for in- dependent politica] action, to raise the slogan of a labor party, and they said, let us bring in. a proposal for a labor congress, and voted down the proposal to bring in a resolution for the labor party. And where is the labor congress that we propagated in the A. F. of L.?. It was offered and then forgotten. And that is typical of the attitude of our C. E. C. ma- jority. We were told, comrades, that after the elections the labor party move- ment was no longer in existence. Now, that-again shows the fundamental un- “Marxist” Way of thinking of our ma- jority. Because in the election cam- paign the workers who were favorable toward the labor party had been swal- lowed by the La Follette movement, because of that the labor party move- ment was no longer in existence, That is the thing the Communist Interna- tional criticized as basing policies upon superficial conditions. It was a superficial conception of the situation to say that the labor party movement was no longer in existence. The labor party movement might be wholly in the La Follette movement and a part of it might still be in existence. The majority could not understand that and therefore they made their errors and said that we must no longer advo- cate the labor party slogan. ND comrades, we had some discus- j sions here as to whether the major- ity was opposed in principle to the labor party. Comrades, I ask you if the majority could write this thesis on the immediate party tasks, whether they can now disclaim such opposition in principle. Here is the section on the right deviation of farmer-laborism in our party, Comradés, I say to you, ‘T répeat for your benefit that in your ‘own thesis*and Comrade Cannon said yesterday, if you believe that farmer- laborism is right-wingism, then you cannot support the farmer-labor pol- icy, If you believe the advocacy of the building of a labor party in the United States was ever right-wingism in our party, then you must be against it and fight it now as you thought it when you wrote this thesis. That is the conception here. And this is a ; tuance of what Comrade Bittel- man wrote in this article. We find this statement in their thesis: “The position’taken by the comrades of this tendency (the m!nority—the farmer- labor tendency, they called it) is the ‘ one about the struggles in the | way to build rst six months in the C. H. ©. and|in America {s thru a farmerlabor he mentioned the fact that there was | party, per Mon ide ON new princi- pt re a ple that the Workers Party can never become a mass Communist Party ex- sept thru organizing and working with- in a farmer-labor party.” And then later on: “This non-Communist con- ception of the role of our party mani- fests itself particularly in the tend- ency to resort to all kinds of new political organizations, substitutes tor the Workers Party, wherever an op- portunity presents itself to appeal to large masses of workers on concrete issues of everyday life.’” This, comrades, is the reverse ot what Bittelman said in his Russian Section speech. Not in contradiction, but the reverse side of the picture. In his article he says that you can only build a movement against capi- talism if the Workers Party creates that movement, and here we have a vefusal to build united front organi- zations for the purpose of carrying on a struggle against capitalism. If you believe that the Workers Party must create a movement itself, then you must be opposed to creating a labor party. You must be opposed to organ- izing the women’s councils for a fight against capitalism. You must be op- posed to non-party organizations thru which the party carries on its strug- gles, This, comrades, shows that this was not merely an error on the labor party issue but was a fundamentaily wrong policy, a fundamentally non- Communist conception in the minds of those who were in the leadership of our party. (Applause.) OMRADES, that conception has manifested itself thruout the party work. Comrade Bittelman has spoken of our criticism of the united front Policy of the majority group. And here is a very significant thing in relation to that criticism. We have a section in the written report starting “other united fronts and special party campaigns” (other than the labor party, is the meaning), the Save the Lansutzky Campaign, Anti-Abramo- vich, Unemployment, World Trade Union Unity, the Release of Croucn and Trumbull. Not one of these cam- paigns, supposedly initiated as united front campaigns, were they actually organized, on any important scale, thru united front eommittees for ‘the struggle for these polities.’ Not Swe, | comrades! Yet they are listed here as examples of the united front, And then, comrades, we had one campaign during the regime of the present C. BE. C, which succeeded in uniting half a million workers in a common struggle, in carrying on an aggressive fight, and that is not mentioned in this report. What was that campaign? That was the campaign first initiated in 1922 by our group, for the protec- tion of the foreign born, and carried on in 1924 against the new laws with the successful uniting of at least half a million workers in that, struggle, as the reports of the national office shaw, and yet this is forgotten, and these campaigns which fall short of correct application of the united front is used to show how the united front tactic is applied, That, comrades, shows the line of thought, the line of thought manifests itself in issuing manifestos but yet we do not go to the point of organizing support, of organizing groups, uniting groups of workers, for the struggle in support of these campaigns which we initiate. Comrades, the task of a unit- ed front compaign is, ta draw other or- ganized groups of. workers inte strug- gles with us thru delegates or commit- tees and carry on the campaign thru these committees and thus the CEC has not sufficiently understood and has not sufficiently and aggressively carried on the campaign for such com- mittees because that would be the or- ganization of all kinds of new organi- zations between ours and the masses against which they protest in their last thesis, ND now, comrades, let us carry the argument a point farther. The CPPA policy of the majority group, and we will get a farther light on the conception of the united front of the majority of the CEC. The CPPA had callod its conferense for February 21 here in Chicago and our Party was to take action. We proposed the labor party slogan in relation to this conven- tion. We proposed, the minority, to elect our delegates in the trade unions and send them thrn to fight under,the slogan of the Labor Party, against La- Tact ie icine, shasta te ae —s pi sacs satel